What Celebs Will Eat at Elton John's Oscars Bash

Ain’t no party like an Elton John Oscars party. It’s the place to be in Hollywood this Sunday night for David and Victoria Beckham, Ellen DeGeneres, Miley Cyrus, Rashida Jones, and other celebs. Held to support John’s AIDS foundation, the party has been catered by Renato Piccolotto from Cipriani in Venice for the past six years. But after some folks from the foundation dined at Ludo Lefebvre’s LudoBites pop-up restaurant, they asked the ballsy French chef to provide food for this year’s 780-person-strong guest list.

“I said I’ll do it, but I want to do my food,” Ludo told us. “[Elton John] loves to eat, loves good food,” Ludo said. “For an English guy, he’s good. The English and the French, you know, there’s a little tension sometimes. But I was surprised.”

In the end, John’s wardrobe was a prime a source of inspiration for chef Ludo: “The food looks a little like the color of the clothes of Elton John–very colorful, like a Christmas tree on the plate.”

There are at least two menu items we’d love to sample: Ludo’s goat cheese soup and the beef tenderloin with charcoal oil. For the first one, the chef takes a classic French goat cheese salad–”you put the cheese on toast, bake in the salamander, and serve it with frisee salad”–but he turns it into a soup. That means goat cheese mixed with chicken stock as the base; brioche toast hit with rosemary, olive oil, lime zest, and goat cheese mousse; and bacon, apple, and frisee as garnishes.

For the meat dish, Ludo makes a charcoal oil. “When you sear meat, I love the taste of the burnt crust,” he says. “So I infused some oil with Japanese charcoal. It has a nice, light, smoky flavor that’s not too strong.”